Tabloids buy photos of celebrities caught in the act of the ordinary���sneezing, laughing , coughing, staring, frowning. They select from these images the one that best supports the fictional allegation they will print. The actor ending his run will be wet, disheveled and gasping for air. That picture will be used to illustrate a story about the actor being out all night ���partying.��� The tabloid has no obligation to identify the separation in time and the misleading association. Why did the D&C chose to publish mug shots of three of Rochester���s important Black leaders? Did the reader need visual evidence to support the fact that they were arrested? Did these images enlighten the reader, impart a better awareness of the issue or the conflict? These images were selected for their clich?� value-- mug shots, pictures of criminals. Black men, ���repeat offenders��� once again, back in the jailhouse. Is it possible that the editors at the D&C are so ignorant or insensitive that they would print these pictures and NOT think they are racial caricatures? That is not a credible conclusion. A more likely one is that these important, well respected community leaders are expendable and deserve to be humiliated. There were no embarrassing pictures of the Republican legislators. The D&C consciously chose to print images of ���black agitators safely in police custody.��� The editors exercised the same judicious balancing as the average tabloid, as usual.

Steven Minarik intends to place as many Republicn partisans in positions of power as possible. The Water Authority has long been a Republican stronghold, Donaher will probably soon begin placing Republicans in his office, and Bill Smith, a machine politicians of the worst sort, could soon be rewarded for lock-stepping with Minarik with a plum job as president of Monroe Community College. I wonder what reward Minarik will give to Zyra when he has to step down? Head of a a new county Department of Human Rights? These actions are a form of the most insidious kind of corruption--especially when undertaken by the party of "small government." If county Republicans ever want to reclaim a shred of real pride--versus arrogance--they'll have to throw Minarik out. If they have the guts.